I think all of the “analysis” about how much teams are worth for tv contracts are fundamentally flawed. The working assumption here seems to be that a team should only be added to a conference if that team on its own is currently worth the per team payout other league members earn. But that’s a standard almost nobody meets today, including teams already earning that payout.

Think about it this way. Purdue today is set to earn a $100m payout as a member of the Big 10. So by CB logic, Purdue on its own is worth $100m. If it isn’t, then the logic would be that if Purdue were to be expelled, the remaining Big 10 teams would receive a larger per team payout (Purdue’s dilutive impact has been removed after all). You could repeat this across every team in the Big 10 and SEC. How many of those teams, if they alone were to leave and go to another conference, would suddenly generate $100m for the new conference? Virtually none of them.

So how is it that the Big 10 can pay its members so much if so few of its members are individually worth $100m?

Well that’s because the value in college football comes from fan interest overall. And fan interest overall is driven by lots of small teams who aren’t worth much individually, but who will lend their eyeballs to other games, buy tickets, travel to games, buy merchandise, etc.

If you kill off all of the small teams in college football, I would argue the pieces that remain are, in the aggregate, worth less than they were before. If Boise St fans, or fans of CSU, Tulsa, Nevada, Marshall, etc suddenly become disinterested in college football because their teams are totally excluded from meaningful participation in the sport (which is going to happen on our current trajectory), then college football is far less compelling as a product and worth less overall.

Can the SEC and Big 10 still get $100m payouts per team if a huge percentage of college fans stop watching their games and caring about the sport? I doubt it.

This is already becoming a problem. Local and regional rivalries which also breed fan passion are being replaced with forced rivalries that just aren’t as interesting. Destroying many of those local and regional teams isn’t going to make college football better or worth more.

It’s in everyone’s interest to give smaller teams a viable path to not just survive but compete. Boise St and Cincinnati and Utah and others crashing the party and beating the big guy is a lot of what makes college football special.

Important to remember that as all these shifts take place. I’d guess the SEC and Big 10 know this, but it’s part of why they can’t afford to just ignore the entire Mountain West and Pacific coast in what they’re trying to build. How this gets solved is obviously to be determined, but it’s essential for college football to thrive.